An effective inbound marketing plan relies on compelling content that attracts and engages your audience. How do you make your content compelling? First, you must understand who makes up your audience. What’s compelling to one reader can be completely irrelevant and boring to another. Once you understand who is in your audience, you can begin to think about what interests them and, more specifically, what issues or topics may cause them to seek out a business like yours. When you understand your audience’s needs, problems, questions, and interests, then you have the tools you need to build articles they will want to read.
Every industry and every business is different, so there is no one single formula for creating compelling online content. You’ll have to consider what your business has to offer and how it improves the lives of your customers.
Wants and Needs
What wants and needs drive people to contact your business? Whatever your industry, you don’t get far without satisfying some kind of want or need for your customers. Whether you’re supplying basic necessities like groceries or discount clothing or more exclusive items like luxury yachts or upscale custom homes, talking about what your customers want or need from your business is a good way to engage them.
At either end of this spectrum, you can offer your creativity and insight to paint pictures for your audience of how your brand provides something special. For example, a home builder can build a virtually endless stock of articles discussing the myriad aspects of the process (floor plans, finishes, specialty rooms, design trends, energy efficiency, etc.) to engage readers’ imaginations. A grocery store, on the other hand, could capture potential patrons’ attention with recipes, nutrition insights, and tips on things like cooking delicious meals on a tight budget or preparing nutritious foods that picky little eaters will love. In both cases, articles like these give businesses the opportunity to express personality and connect with their audiences.
Problems
What problems do you solve for customers? Talking about how you solve problems (and, if appropriate, ways in which your solutions are more effective than other approaches) is a very direct way of engaging your audience. For example, if your business provides home maintenance services, articles about topics like troubleshooting furnace problems, DIY home repair tips, and how to extend the life of your water heater can provide great value for your audience, building trust in your brand and increasing the likelihood that readers will contact you when it’s time to call in a pro. Whatever your industry, discussing the types of problems that customers come to you with and how to approach solving them gives you the opportunity to show off your expertise and build your authority as an industry leader.
Questions
What are some of the most common questions that people ask you about your industry? Start writing down those questions, and turn them into online content like blog posts, ebooks, or instructional videos! These easily sharable items can help your business stand out from the competition and generate buzz. Make some of these available for anyone (such as on your blog), and then create others that go more in depth, which you can offer for download in exchange for your website visitors’ basic contact information. By giving your audience a sample of your expertise, you can fuel interest in more information, enabling you to generate leads online through your inbound marketing efforts.
To create content your audience will want to read, speak to their wants, needs, problems, and questions. Once you’ve captured their interest, seize the opportunity to collect lead information so your team can follow up and nurture those leads into sales to grow your business. If you’d like agency help developing your inbound marketing strategy, contact Blue Frog! We’re a HubSpot Gold Tier partner specializing in inbound marketing. Blue Frog offices are located in Des Moines, Iowa, Denver, Colorado, and Huron, Ohio, and we serve clients throughout the U.S.
